[OC] The 2023 NBA MVP & Awards Vote Tracker

It’s NBA voting season and the Reddit NBA vote tracker is back.

Each year I track the media voters and votes for the NBA MVP award in real time. I compile evidence of media members saying they are voters and how they are casting those votes for the NBA MVP and awards.

[\*\*View the 2023 NBA MVP & Awards Tracker Here\*\*](https://tinyurl.com/mr2kyvfe)

It is still early for vote tracking. Most public vote disclosures happen after the ballots are due. Right now I have identified three first places votes for MVP and they are spread:

* 1 vote for Nikola Jokic
* 1 vote for Joel Embiid
* 1 vote for Giannis Antetokounmpo

I’ll note that I am surprised to see Stephen A. Smith state his preference so clearly as early as he did. Normally he milks it a bit more. But if he declares he has changed to undecided or another player I will update that.

**History:**

This is a crowdsourced project and last year we correctly identified 56 of the 100 NBA MVP voters with a 98.5% accuracy rate of their ballots.

The league does not publicly disclose the voters for the NBA awards so I try to remove the mystery. This project strives for accuracy and simply takes voters at their word and the statements they make on podcasts, TV, articles, and generally anywhere.

This started in 2017 because I’m a Rockets fan. I’m proud to have spoiled the now defunct NBA Awards show that year by determining [Westbrook’s win through publicly available votes](https://www.thedreamshake.com/2017/5/19/15660904/russell-westbrook-nba-mvp-james-harden-voting-totals). Even though my guy didn’t win. I currently have no favored outcome on anything in the NBA but the draft lottery. You can find links to each year’s vote tracker in the spreadsheet linked above.

The tracker follows these awards:

* NBA MVP
* All-NBA Teams
* Defensive Player of the Year
* Sixth Man of the Year
* Rookie of the Year
* Most Improved Player of the Year
* Coach of the Year

While there are other awards there are generally not enough public vote disclosures for defensive or rookie teams to track them with any meaning. So I take a pass on tracking those awards.

**Summary:**

Here’s the items I’ll briefly cover in this post…

* Presumed changes to the awards
* Predicting the NBA Awards Voters
* How is this different from the straw poll
* How you can help

**Presumed changes to the awards:**

* No Fan Vote. It appears the NBA eliminated the MVP Fan Vote for good. From 2017 – 2021 the voting pool was 100 media members and 1 Fan Vote. The 101st fan vote disappeared in 2022.  That’s fair. In 2021 ‘we the fans’ questionably gave the vote to Derrick Rose. That seems to be the NBA’s fault as it was nearly impossible to find out how to cast a fan vote for NBA MVP that season. Knicks fans figured it out and gamed the system. Sam Amick wrote that the voting pool this year is 100 media members only. There’s a chance he didn’t realize the fan vote previously existed, but either way I can’t find a single reference to a fan vote or process for casting one in 2023.
* No Awards Show. Feels like the NBA has given up on the awards show. Presumably the biggest issue is the need for teams to have certainty over their cap figures and the contract eligibility of trade targets before the draft. Waiting for an awards show to tell you who is eligible for a supermax is wild in a league that now trades All-Stars every year.
* All-NBA Stays The Same. You may have read that All-NBA will not have positions in the future under the new CBA. That change is for 2024.
* Clutch Player. Voters get to vote for this award. But I will not be tracking the award unless I see a significant enough number of public disclosures.

**Predicting the NBA Awards Voters**

In the past I’ve done a lengthy post predicting who the NBA Awards voters are. That doesn’t feel necessary this year because over the last two years the NBA hasn’t significantly changed the voting pool between NBA All-Star Starters and NBA Awards:

* In 2017: 95% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
* In 2018: 93% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
* In 2019: 91% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
* In 2020: 95% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP
* **In 2021: 97% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP**
* **In 2022: 97% of the All-Star media voters also voted for NBA MVP**

I can’t imagine the league has decided to deviate from this trend. But if the league has changed the voting pool I require one of two things before adding a voter in the spreadsheet:

* Option One: A voter publicly discloses they have an official ballot this year. I include a link to where they say that. Example: John Hollinger did an Athletic article with his “ballot” but says in the article directly he’s not an official voter. Michael Pina did a similar article while including that he is a voter.
* Option Two: A voter has consistent voting history. I personally refer to this as “good standing” and will include a voter who has not publicly disclosed that they have a ballot if they meet the following requirements…

* The media member voted for the 2023 NBA All-Star Starters
* The media member voted for the 2022 NBA MVP & Awards
* The media member voted for the 2022 NBA All-Star Starters
* The media member is at the same publication/has the same employer currently as when they cast the three ballots listed above

**How Is This Different From The Straw Poll:**

If you’re in this sub you know about the Bontemps NBA MVP Straw Poll. My project is an attempt to locate the actual voters and what they cast on their final ballots.

The Straw Poll does not disclose participants. It would seem foolish if the league provided Bontemps a list of the voters for him to poll right before the actual award comes out. So there’s probably a lot of voter overlap in the Bontemps straw poll and actual voters, but it is not one-to-one.

* The straw poll does a noble job of including two voters from every NBA media market. The NBA Awards do not come close to that. The league generally has one voter from all but a few of the media markets. Some markets have been left out in past years.
* Markets like Utah, San Antonio, Charlotte, and Milwaukee reliably have one vote in the NBA Awards. But unless you start including national media members with favored affiliations you don’t get close to two from every market. Similarly the league has voters located in NBA cities but they don’t cover the team in that city. Example: Lots of Turner folks live in Atlanta, they do not cover the Hawks and I would not consider them a voter for the Atlanta media market. They are national voters.

Lastly, I don’t know if the league provides a list of the voters to anyone. We see that teams lobby voters for players they want to win. In the past that has included swag boxes. I’m unaware if teams do the same thing I do or if they are given a full list.

**How You Can Help:**

If you find any media members sharing their votes send it my way.

If you find any media member saying they have an official NBA Awards ballot, even if they don’t say who they vote for, send it my way.

Include a link or timestamp to anything you find. I include primary sourcing in all tracking efforts. If Marv Albert says his vote in the third quarter of an NBA broadcast send me a note saying what game and what minute he shared his ballot.

Also if you see any presumed errors in the tracker hit me up. I’m a single person admittedly with no editor who does this for fun. I may have something wrong and will always correct it asap if I do.

by texasalaskamontana